Roger Meyer

As a little boy was walking to school with his mother, he kept turning around and looking back. His mother asked him what he was doing. He said he was looking for “Shirley Goodness and Murphy, who would follow him all the days of his life.” The little boy had not quite understood the words of Psalms 23, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

Throughout history, many millions of people have lived in nations where a state religion was enforced. Some of these religions have been relatively mild in their influence, while others have been severe. Even today, despite the trend toward secularism, dozens of nations have at least a nominal state religion. Modern generations have grown up during a period of secularism in Western nations, and many may be tempted to think that the country in which they live will never be under a state religion.

The news media buzzed with excitement in 1967 about a revolutionary operation that had just taken place in Cape Town, South Africa. This was the date of the first human heart transplant in history. Millions have heart problems. Sometimes, our hearts simply wear out. Is a heart replacement the answer?

 To think about the universe stretches the mind. Man, through the sciences of astrophysics and cosmology, continues to learn—and speculate—about the origins of the universe. But the bigger question is, “What was before the universe?”

Many historians have written about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. From Edward Gibbon’s epic work to modern books on the subject, numerous reasons are offered for Rome’s decline that offer interesting parallels to America’s declining power and prestige. Could America also fall?

From the barbarian hordes and the over-extension of the military to moral and political decay, the reasons given by historians for the Roman Empire’s decline and fall are wide-ranging.